8chan founder blasts over Website shutdown

The founder of 8chan chat forum has described moves to shut down his website because it hosted hate messages linked to deadly US killings as “sinister” and “cowardly”.

In a video uploaded to Youtube, Philippines-based Jim Watkins said the deadly weekend attacks in the American cities of El Paso and Dayton were a tragedy.

But Watkins insisted 8chan had not broken any laws and devoted most of his seven-and-a-half-minute video to criticizing the subsequent moves to shut down his forum.

“It is actually sinister behaviour. Ours is one of the last independent companies that offer a place you may write down your thoughts free from having to worry about whether they are offensive to one group or another,” Watkins said.

Watkins portrayed efforts against 8chan as part of the “power consolidation” of the internet by a few strong and rich companies in the way of radio and television stations in previous generations.

“It will effectively silence the masses, and leave them with no place to voice their messages,” Watkins said.

8chan, which promotes itself as a site devoted to the “darkest reaches of the internet”, has been home to posts from right-wing extremists, misogynists and conspiracy theorists.

A manifesto denouncing a “Hispanic invasion”, said to have been written by the young white male American suspect in the El Paso attack, was posted on 8chan shortly before he gunned down 22 people and wounded more than 20 others.